The truth is...

So after almost 2 years and lots of crazy,  we have decided to tell a bit of our tale.   This has been a time that has strengthened our relationship and our relationship with our families.  It has been a time of shame, a time of disappointment, and now a time of hope renewed.  This journey has been long and tiring, and looking back we would not have changed a thing.  Thanks to all our friends and family who stood by us while we wallowed, cried, and listened to all our coo-coo banana baby babblings.

The long road to nowhere

August 12th


So here begins a (slightly altered) journey I have longed for since I was a little girl. I have always pictured myself a mother; I was always the one looking out for the kids who were bullied in school, who packed extra fruit in case someone forgot. And still to this day, as many family and friends can attest, I make sure all around me are fed and celebrated in a special way. All the while I have been practicing in hopes that one day all these "talents" could be used on my own family. When I met Andi I thought that this could be the gal to make my dreams come true. Well, all have, except this one.


It has been a rough road as we've watched so many of our friends and family become blessed with pregnancies. It always seemed effortless for everyone else, with pregnant women everywhere taunting me with their large bellies and pregnant 'glow'. It left me feeling like a failure, knowing that this most natural state of being was not yet within my reach. Don't get me wrong; we are, and have always been, happy for our pregnant family and friends, but that does not mean we haven't been green with envy.


We have prayed and prayed (to whoever would listen) that "this would be the month" but those darn pregnancy tests just laughed at me. We've lit candles, I've worn fertility goddesses around my neck, and of course entered into the maddening cycle of charting waking temps and checking cervical mucous. Not to mention, this big needle-phobe (ME!) started getting poked weekly by my lovely acupuncturist, as this ancient Chinese treatment is reported to increase my chances of conception. As anyone who has taken this agonizing journey knows, we've lived our lives in two-week increments, for the better part of 18 months now.


So we finally decided to go for the big guns and talk to our doctor about IVF. We were scared and excited all at the same time, hopeful that this would be the answer to our prayers. After our consultation with Dr. Amy, I was feelin' pretty good. She made it seem like our chances were/ are stellar. I am still 'young' in the fertility game and my hormone levels are all perfect. We took home our Giant Binder of info and started reading about what was to come...

FSH ANC & Estradiol.

August 24th

The blood work and the antral follicle count were today, after 3 reschedules. Now for those of you who do not know, (which I assume is most of you), an antral follicle count is a predictor of the "babies in waiting" follicles who may or may not become an egg to ovulate. My previous counts had been in the teens, and this time we had a count of 8. WHAT???? Panic set in and I thought, have I aged that much? Did all my eggs get used while I was on Clomid?? Dr. Amy says that this was not the case and we should be fine, my ovaries were just a little "quiet" this month. QUIET, for those of you who know me- I do not do quiet well. We decided that since my hormone levels were perfect, even better than before (thanks Jen), we would go forth and try to populate!

Phew, another hurdle cleared; but this is no sprint, it is a marathon!

The Hysteroscopy

August 27th

The de la Calle parents finally came out to Seattle. That was a treat and we had a blast even though we had to schedule and reschedule activities around our fertility clinic appointments.
So with my parents on board, literally and figuratively, we headed to Seattle Reproductive Medicine (SRM), where all our baby dreams would come true. I remember telling my parents "this will be a quick check, half hour tops". I should know as a nurse that nothing goes as planned. We all ate lunch in the courtyard of the fertility clinic and then went forth to the waiting room. It was hard for me to imagine what my parents expected. I knew for sure they had never set foot in an office like this. In a way I think their 'luck' in joining us at the appointment legitimized this science experiment in their eyes. My dad, the logical one, was very into the science behind this IVF and my mom, oh my sweet mom, was happy that she would in fact have a grandchild. Back to the procedure... When they finally called me back; I had to take a picture of the machine that was in the room because I could not even begin to describe it. 

I turned to Andi and she looked as freaked out as I was. What did we sign up for? Well let me tell you, they had to get a camera (on a long thin, sort of, probe) through my cervix to my uterus. Now mind you, this is the gold standard for visualization of the uterus and we would only have the best; or so we thought! I am a self- proclaimed germophobe, as those of you who know me well can attest. My cervix followed suit; nothing was getting by her, and after 45 minutes of trying, and using scary implements to 'dilate' my cervix, the doctor said "why don't we try just a regular ultrasound, it will show what we need to see". WHAT!?!?!?!? After all the pain and suffering we were going to abort the mission and take the second-best monitoring procedure... you bet! So an hour later we had the measurements needed and also the knowledge that I have a beautiful uterus! The first of many "all clears" that we would need to get started.

The hold up

September 3rd

Some of you may remember that I was living with some significant abdominal pain from July to September. Well, we found out that it was my gallbladder (who I affectionately named Shrek) causing me to suffer. I did not know how this was to affect the process, so we asked Dr. Amy. She told us that we had to wait until at least 6 weeks from the day of surgery to have the IVF embryo transfer.

So today was surgery day. One day closer to living pain-free and one day closer to making our baby dreams real. It is a good thing that we found out before we got prego that I had Shrek issues. I would have been a wreck if I had to decide to have surgery while pregnant.

All Clear

September 10th

I thought it might be a good idea to have a complete physical before we embark on this science experiment. I have not had one in well... too long! I met my primary doc, filled her in on the happenings, and got the thumbs up to move forward.

Aunt Flow

September 15th

I have never been so happy to get aunt flow. She brings with her the knowledge that we are yet one step closer to our final destination... mommyhood.

So, this is important because in four days I begin to take birth control pills. It is a funny thing that our first medication on the road to conception is a contraceptive. Counterintuitive, yes? Well the reason is that you have to take away your body's natural drive to ovulate. It is the first step towards suppresion. We also are on our way out of town to enjoy the outdoor living Idaho has to offer. After a pharmacy snafu we got our pills and were ready to go. Funny that this will be the first time I have ever been on the pill, HA.

Meds, meds and more meds.

September 22

While we were out of town we got the phone call from IVP, the pharmacy we get all our fertility meds from. This was tricky... to be able to talk to them while keeping it a secret from the other 4 gals on the trip. Well, we managed to be secretive and we also managed to not have a heart attack at the final cost of the meds. This was the first time we heard about all the meds, because we had not seen the doctor's orders. The order goes right to the pharmacy and our appointment to go over our protocol was the following week. So believe you me I was shocked at the volume of meds prescribed. We were able to schedule the delivery with no issues and now we wait for the meds and for the instructions.

The Binder

September 24th

Time for the talk with Dr. Amy and to get our action plan calendar. We were very excited for this appointment; we went in with a long list of questions and and an even longer list of hopes. She gave us the rundown of what the next couple of months would entail, as well as a briefing on the meds. She talked a lot about when the embryos would be placed in my uterus and how they were going to decide which ones to put in. Apparently there is a grading system and those little guys/gals have to prove themselves worthy of the womb. My poor kids have to make the grade just to have a chance to be born. By the time college rolls around they will be pros at the admissions tests!

We left the binder appointment feeling confident that this was going to work, but a bit confused on the logistics. So much to remember, thank god it was all outlined in the giant white Binder. We must not be the only ones who leave the consult confused because right afterward they have you sit with a nurse who goes over it all again. Now that is thorough! So I went home and started to read and hightlight... I know, I know what a NERD, but I was going to understand how all of this works before it is actually happening. I only hope that after all this craziness and my OCD about the binder Andi still wants to start a family... with me!

The big 40

September 27th

After a nice night out with friends to celebrate my Buddy's (Andi's) 40th, we were off to a relaxing weekend at the Salish Lodge. We thought of this as the treat before we had to deal with raging hormones and unstable emotions. What a nice weekend we had sponsored by our parents and siblings. This was a much needed respite from the trying-to-conceive 

Injection teaching

October 1st

Now mind you, we are both nurses, but because of my nutty idea that we had to experience everything about IVF, I dragged Andi to a class on how to give a shot. We were in there with another couple and after seeing them struggle I felt like we were wasting our time. Andi kept telling me that if a regular Joe would be trusted to give his wife a shot, I was in great hands. The only things that came out of the class were (1) do not give the meds too fast because they will sting, and (2) the renewed confidence that we know what the hell we are doing. Great!

The meds are here, the meds are here!!!

October 2nd

So the meds came to the house today in a giant brown box. I could not wait to rip it open and see what was inside. Now, we were told that some of the meds were going to have to be refrigerated, so what did we do yesterday? The only logical thing two nutty lesbians trying to have a baby for two long years would do... price out new refrigerators. Why? Well the simple answer is that we have lost our minds!! What did we think? That a new fridge would keep colder better than the one we had? So we came to our senses and did the next best thing... we got a fridge thermometer. Now this is when Andi showed her crazy, I bet you all thought that would never happen. She checked the temp like 12 times every half hour, just to make sure that it was still at exactly 40 degrees, and after microcalibrating the coldness number to the exact tenth, the fridge was deemed satisfactory to store our liquid gold.

Wait, back to the meds... when we finally opened the box and, "what the hell did we get ourselves into?" They say a picture speaks louder than words so here it is, our own living room pharmacy, complete with narcotics.

Lupron, you're not so tough!

October 7th

This is it, the big day! We start our 'injectable' meds. We were very nervous to draw it up, and even more nervous to give it. You would think we had never seen a syringe before. All the great info from the injection teaching class, 4 years of nursing school, and a combined 21 years of actual nursing experience... out the window! After a couple of "are you readys?", the shot was in and we were on our way!

Lupron is supposed to throw you into menopause, so I was ready for the headaches, night sweats, hot flashes and whatever else it could throw at me. I was going to be a trooper, after all I was going to be a mom soon... right? And moms have to be tough for their kids. This was our first shot at that ( pun intended).

For the next week we were going to be in Chicago. We had a full week of family wedding engagements, Yom Kippur, and family visits. This was going to take a lot of planning, surreptitious rendezvous in public restrooms.  I never felt more like an illicit drug user.

The pact we had was that Andi would always give me the shots. One, because it gives her a major role in this process and two, I can't stick myself with a needle. This pact was broken when she made plans to see a band with my sister at the time my meds had to be given. So it was do it myself or have my mom do it. Wow, this was a tough call. My poor mom, I made her practice the shot like 12 times on a grape. Finally after enough tries that I felt like she would not hurt me, she gave me the shot. She did great and I did not have to stick myself!

The suppression check

October 16th

We arrived home from Chicago and were jolted back into the conception race. Fly in at noon and then head over to SRM for our suppression check (an IVF term meaning that my body has not tried to get ready to ovulate before it shoud).  We got the "all clear" to start the follicle stimulating meds.  So now this needle-phobe will get 3 shots a night starting tomorrow.  Now I will be on a med to stop me from ovulating on my own, one to make sure many folicles are generated and another to help all the follicles mature.  Here is a snap shot of what the next couple weeks will be like...

3 nightly shots at 6pm.  

 Acupuncture as scheduled by Jen- acupuncturist extraordinare!!

Blood work

October 19th

Today I went in for the first blood draw to check my estradiol level.  This blood test will tell Dr. Amy if she should increase or decrease my follicle stimulating meds.  We got a call later in the day to let us know that our number was "strong" and they would keep everything the same.   Our next visit will be for another blood draw and an ultrasound to see how many follicles we have growing.  

From excitement to disappointment.

October 21

We were very very excited this morning!!  Today is the day we get to see all our wonderful, plentiful follicles.  I told the sonographer that my ovaries did not feel as full or heavy as they did on clomid; she assured me that this was normal and that sometimes this happens.  I shrugged my shoulders and we started the US.   She started to measure and count while Andi was trying to write everything down.  What we got was 11 follicles that were all about the same size 12-14mm.  

WHAT????? Only 11- where were the 30 or at least 20 that I was expecting?!  I asked the sonographer if  we could expect more to pop up, and she said "no, this is a fine number".  A fine number... I did not want fine I wanted spectacular!!!  She said "we would be worried if there was only 1-2".  I am sorry but I am worried because all we have is 11; that is not even a dozen eggs!!!!  We left disappoined and I had tears!  Dr. Amy called later that same day to reassure me that 11 was a decent turn out.  What they hope for is that all of them would mature.  

Here are the Stats

October 24

As  you all know, I am very tenacious and very rarely give in.  We went in for the second ultra sound to check the follies today.  Remember when that know-it-all sonographer told us that 11 was all we would have?.... well, I showed her- there were 13 this time.  HA!  The left ovary produced 7  "eggs" in sizes ranging from 9-17 mm and the right ovary produced 6 ranging in size from 13-20mm.  Everyone was happy... after Andi made me see that there was no use fretting about what we did not have, and we focused instead on our amazing 13 follicles!  It was recommended that we give the HCG trigger shot the next day.  OH BOY we are one day closer to becoming pregnant!  

Pulling the trigger

October 25 

We were instructed to give the HCG shot at exactly 8:45pm, not one minute before or after.   HCG is the medicine that makes you body release the eggs precisely 36 hours later.   This was going to be fun since we had dinner plans with friends that evening.  So that evening as we were getting ready to go out we made sure we had everything in our purse... lip gloss, money, id's, vial of HCG, syringe, and hypodermic needle... check check and double check.  This really had turned out to be a crazy ride.  When we got to the restaurant we set our alarm and waited for it to go off.  We could only hope that we were seated next to someone who was in on our little secret.  No chance!  We sat next to a couple we hardly knew.  When the alarm went off and we both got up and went to the bathroom, who knew what they thought?  

This gets better...  since it was the weekend before Halloween it was only fitting that we were in the bathroom line with a witch, a cat and one of the Scooby Doo characters.  We finally got in the stall and it was time for the shot.  It went okay after we stopped the bleeding.  Apparently we knicked a vessel on the way to the muscle.   After 15 minutes we joined our party and tried to pretended like everything was normal.   What a night!  

First positive

October 26

What a wonderful day.  We got up and I had to take a pregnancy test.  Let me explain.  Since we gave the trigger shot last night we had to be sure that it was absorbed by the body.  The only way to do this is a prego test, as HCG is the pregnancy hormone detected by the home pregnancy tests.   After peeing on the stick we got our first positive pregnancy test.  What a weird feeling. We had never seen this before but it was sad to know that it was not because we were truly pregnant, but we did in fact give the shot right!  We hoped that this was a glimpse of what was to come.  One day closer to our dreams coming true.  Tomorrow at 8am our little eggs would be removed by the Docs and put into the embryologist's capable hands.  WOW!!!

The retrieval!

October 27

This was the most nervous I have been this whole journey.  It was to the point that I was shaking a bit.  When we got to the fertility clinic we were sent to an empty lobby and then brought back to the OR waiting area.  I had already taken 10mg of Valium but I was still very nervous.  The nurse that came to place my IV had to try 3 times because of this, and because of my elevating nerves she gave me a bonus dose of versed.  She then became my best friend and the process was much better.  Andi was there to hold my hand and give me support although after the versed she could have been big bird for all I knew.  The next thing I knew I was back in the same spot with bad cramps and cotton mouth.   It was all over and this little chicken had layed a dozen eggs. 

Spooky

October 31

Tonight was all about relaxing and prepping for the biggest day of our lives.  We decided to attend a dinner at our pal Kihan's.

It was a vegetarian feast!  Wine was flowing and garlic was roasting.  I have never eaten so much Brie and Garlic.  No wine!!!!  It was lovely.  We felt it was the perfect way to spend our last night on our road to pregnancy.

The Transfer

November 1

Today was the big day!  I had a very early appointment to have acupuncture at 8am.  We had to make sure that we remembered to take a progesterone suppository exactly 2 hours before the transfer.  Well, about half an hour into the session we remembered and now we were behind schedule.  I panicked and thought "wow, now we blew it".  I also had to continue to drink the 36 ounces of water required for the procedure.  As we left at 9am, I peed for the very last time, or so I thought.  I continued to drink the water because I had already messed up once and I was not going to let that happen again. 

By the time we got to the fertility clinic I had to pee so bad that I could hardly walk... I think I over did it.  Messed up again.  I begged Andi to let me stop at a bathroom and just pee a little bit.  She would not give in until she saw the tears; I had to pee soooooooo bad I was going to die.  How could I enjoy this beautiful moment in our lives when all I could think about was going to the bathroom?  Plus I had a very legitimate fear I would pee on the doctor and that is no good at all.  Finally we found a little out-of-the-way bathroom around the corner from the office... no one would find me here.  I went in and Andi followed.  WHAT?!?!  Did she not trust that I would only pee a tiny little bit, enough so that I could walk to the room.   Well she knows me all too well, and I needed to be watched!!!   

After a small amount of relief we went to the office.  We waited in the room and were met by the embryologist,  a lovely man that was holding the picture of my future baby- the most beautiful 10 cells ever! He came in and gave us the shpiel about how great my embryo was and what a great job it had done dividing.  He kept talking about a single embryo, so I said really we wanted two transfered because, well, why take chances.  He looked at us and asked us how prepared we were for twins.  We can handle it we said.  "Okay, because the chances of them both taking are very high" he said.  Didn't he know who he was talking to?-  two women determined to make pregnancy happen; two women ready to be moms; two women who would stop at nothing to achieve our dreams!! (And one lady who really had to pee!!!! )  So out of his pocket came a photo of the second most beautiful 10 cells we ever had seen.   

READY SET GO... to the potty that is.  When the sonographer came in the room she told us that Dr. Amy was running a bit behind and did I possibly want to use the ladies room?  I leapt off the table with a newfound spunk!!  YES!!!  She handed me a cup and said "only fill it to here please".  Yet another person that does not trust me.  I was so happy I didn't care!! Trust, who needs it!   

After another little bit of relief Amy was finally here, with her family waiting in the lobby.  She is wonderful- she came in on her day off before she started her day out with the family.   After some pleasantries she prepped and I prepped.  Andi and I clasped hands, the embryologist was ready, and the little catheter with our two precious blastocycts was passed thru a little window to the doctor.  We could watch her thread the catheter into my uterus on the big screen.  Ready set go!  It was done!  In they went and now we were moms? Right?  Well, they have to check the catheter after the transfer to make sure those little guys made it out okay.  The embryologist took it back and unfortunately saw that there they were, still just nestled in the catheter.  SERIOUSLY!!!  Take two! The second time it was a flawless execution and evacuation!!  They were in with no chance of escape!!  Now, 2 days of bed rest, praying (a lot of praying) and hoping!!  The wait begins!  The longest 2 weeks of our lives!!!